Interview
by fando
Summary: Mr. Yokozawa interviews the illiterate son of Onodera Ritsu and Takano Masamune.
1. First Impression

_Okay, so listen, Mr. Yokozawa. I like you and all, but… I don't like this setup. Why do you have a recorder? I woulda just written you an autobiography myself if you really wanted to hear my entire life story._

 _This is fuckin' stupid. My accent? What's wrong with my fuckin' accent? My accent isn't the thing that's making this whole deal fuckin' stupid. I'm not dropping my accent, there's nothing to drop. I'm from Brooklyn. I only lived in Japan a little while with Pops and Dad._

 _Did you just roll your eyes at me? You're an idiot._

 _…. Yeah. Whatever. I've gotten that before. I'm my father's kid. Sure. I know that. I get that from basically everyone. … Wait, how does a guy like you know Pops?_

 _No, that is important. Tell me._

 _Stop laughing. How do you know Masamune Takano?_

 _I'm serious._

 _No, I'm not acting paranoid!… Fine, fine. Have it your way then. I just wanna get out of this shit office. Get this over with, and I don't really care how you know my dad, anyway. I mean, I have more important things on my mind. Like, do you know how many kids I have?_

 _And Shir got his parents to watch the kids today, but the last time Usagi watched them Max got loose and we spent hours looking for him and Shir nearly flipped his shit and we only found him at the ice cream parlor down the road but he tried to pay in Yen and the guy was Italian, so-_

 _\- hey. You asked for my life story. Don't tell me to shut up._

 _What'd you say? What's the fun of starting from the beginning?_

 _Fine, fine. Maybe I'll get why you know Pops if I do it your way. So, the beginning…._


	2. Takafumi

Note: Ririko (Riri) is deathday1313's OC and does not belong to me. Permission was given to use the character in this story. Thanks deathday for that! :)

 _I'd never had a reason to call somebody dad before. I wasn't even sure how to call somebody that. To me, before I was adopted and the first couple months after I was adopted, it just sounded weird and I didn't want to do it. I'm 23 right and whenever Dad calls, it goes something like this:_

 _-"Hi Rei, it's me." (that's dad.)_

 _-"Hey… Dad. (that's me.) How's… Pops."_

 _All awkward, ya know? 'Cause it's weird._

 _Not that Pops cares what I call him. Father woulda been a better name, in hindsight, cause he's one a those types. Pops is cold. He's a real hardass. He's a harsh motherfucker. OH!- uh. Can you not tell him I said that…. Thanks. Hey, stop laughing. I'm serious, please don't tell Pops that I called him a motherfucker._

 _Yeh, imma 23 year old, grown-ass adult who's afraid of his Papa finding out that he called him a motherfucker._

 _I'm not stupid._

 _Yeah. What was that? Oh. I didn't call them Dad and Pops right away. It took a while for me to warm up to the idea that they were my parents, let alone the idea that I actually had parents. When I was fourteen, which is the age when I was adopted, Dad was always "Mr. Onodera." And Pops was always "Mr. Takano." Dad thought me calling them "dad" and "papa" was important and pushed for it, but Pops told him to give me time. He was fair that way._

 _I always thought the last names thing was weird, you know like how they put the last names first in Japan. Sorry, I'm just thinkin about that now and… what's your first name, Mr. Yokozawa?_

 _Taka- what?_

 _… I'm not laughing. No, of course not._

 _…_

 _Wait, I'm not Rei Onodera. Who told you that was my name?_

 _I mean, obviously I'm his kid. Obviously. Of course. Yeah. I have a copy of the adoption papers somewhere back at my office to prove it, to back me up._

 _If you're gonna say something like, "Respect your elders, Onodera Rei", then say my name. It's Tanaka Rei._

 _Wait, no it's not. It's Rei Tanaka, 'cause I'm from New York and we don't do that shit. The name is just. The name. It's just a name._

 _That's why we never got it changed over, even after the adoption- names are stupid, meaningless, weird. It has nothing to do with anything else. Um._

 _When I was fourteen, I was Tanaka-Chan to , y'know what it was… Usagi, my tutor, always called me Takano-Chan when I went to study with him. He didn't know any better at the time. Pops was always the one to drop me off at tutoring, so he always assumed I was a Takano. I was Takano-Chan when I went over, Takano-Chan do this, Takano-Chan, study harder. Takano-Chan all the time._

 _It surprised me at first. But I remember bein cool with it._

 _What? Who are you, fuckin' Freud now, Takafumi?_

 _How did that make me feel? Seriously?_

 _What?_

 _I am calm. Shut up._

 _…how did that make me feel…. I guess I just liked the name. It made me feel warm n' fuzzy on the inside._

 _I didn't have anything in common with Papa. We were so different. That's why we got into fights all the time. Not fist fights. Those were with different people. God, Riri hated me getting into fights, but she never told Dad or Papa. I remember Dad saying, "Masamune! Masamune! Leave the boy alone, he's just a kid!" And Pops going, "He shouldn't talk to his father like that, RItsu." It was his fault, anyway. But I guess I shouldn't have picked so many fights with my old man. I was already disconnected by blood, and the fights distanced us even more._

 _I have 2 siblings that are closer to Pops than I am. Ask anybody, they belong to that family. Usagi's boyfriend, Misaki, always talked about how much Riri and Nagi looked like Dad. I didn't get any comments like that. Ririko and Nagisa are both younger than me but they were adopted before me, so technically I'm the last one, the last kid, you see how that works…? Both're Onoderas 'cause Dad's father owns some book company… I dunno. It's called Onodera Publishing. It's just a really successful company. Having the name to back them up doesn't hurt their reputations._

 _Yeah. Apparently it's that big of a deal._

 _You heard of them?_

 _Yeah, apparently everybody but me knows about my own Dad's company's rep._

 _Riri is like… God, how old is she now? I don't remember. I have to call her later. She was adopted too, just like me, but she's from Australia. God, I poked fun at her for that for a while. She picked up on Japanese faster'n I did though…. 'cause she's a girl._

 _That's what Papa always said._

 _NO- Y'know what sucks? When your Papa makes you repeat everything you say if you accidentally say it in English around him. Papa wanted me to learn Japanese fast. Papa's always like, "Say it in Japanese." Even now. I'm 23 friggin' years old, and whenever we talk on the phone he makes me talk in only Japanese. He wouldn't let me talk, damnit. Back then I coulda said, "Papa, I killed a man," and he would have said, "Say it in Japanese, Rei. Say it back to me in Japanese. It's the only way you're gonna learn."_

 _… stop snickering. What's so funny?_

 _It sounds just like him?_

 _I guess…._

 _He would always do that to me. Never to Riri, who didn't know more Japanese than I did back when I was fourteen and she was seven. Riri was the favorite. 'Cause she's a cute girl n' shit. Dad was right about her bein' smart 'cause she's smart and not just 'cause she's a girl, but she was the favorite no matter what anybody says._

 _And Nagi was the other favorite but for a different reason. As their first boy and as their first genetically related kid, he was special. He was a test tube baby and it made him a fuckin superstar. I got so sick of it. Nagi this, Nagi that. I got so fuckin' sick and tired of Nagi. One kid can only get so much attention…_

 _… or lack thereof…._

 _Nah, I didn't say nothing._

 _So, yeah. I came in late, I wasn't an Onodera, I didn't speak the language, I didn't belong. So I was a bitter kid._

 _Bein bitter is so exhausting, let me tell you…. You look like you know what I'm talkin' about, Takafumi._

 _Hell yeah I'm a smartass._

 _I hated being the last one adopted. I wanted to run away. I guess I still am running away in my own way. Sometimes I tell Dad that I'm busy when he calls me, and then I spend the rest of the day watching Adventure Time reruns with the kids. Don't tell him I said that._

 _Well, I'm just sayin, if you know Pops then you probably know Dad too, right?You worked with-? When?! When were you gonna tell me this?_

 _… ah. I didn't know he used to work at Marukawa. That's where Pops used to work. He used to take me, Riri, and Nagi there sometimes…._

 _Actually… I think Shiro's dad works at Marukawa now. Do you know him? His name is Misaki Takahashi…?_

 _Oh. And you're his boss, huh? Weird._

 _No, no, a cool weird. Sorry Takafumi. What were we talkin' about? Um… god, I can't even remember. It's like, you know, god this is hard to explain._

 _When I started callin' them Dad and Pops, I forgot that there was a time when I didn't. I'm tryin', I'm tryin'. Dad was adamant about me callin him proper, and he was as much if not more adamant about me callin Pops proper. I was more or less forced into it._

 _… you have that look on your face…_

 _Goddamnit Takafumi, don't go Freud on me again. I swear to fuckin' god. Don't ask me how it makes me feel._

 _Stop laughing. Jesus fucking Christ. What's so funny?_

 _Look, it makes me feel like shit, okay? Not being Takano-Chan, not being a Takano, not being an Onodera, even if it is just a name, is terrifying. I spent so much time growing up as their son, but I'm still terrified that I'm not really their son. It's so stupid right 'cause it's just a name, right, but-_

 _Fuck._

 _…_

 _I'm leavin_


	3. Usagi

_When I was living in Japan with Pops and Dad, I had to take tutoring classes with somebody named Mr. Akihiko Usami. I'm dyslexic and for the longest time Dad thought I had a serious learning disability. It turned out my eyes were just fucked up._

 _My tutor was apparently this huge deal in Japan. Do you know him too, Takafumi? He was the stricktest person I've ever met besides Pops, but to me he was just my hardass teacher. I read a couple of his books. They were actually part of his curriculum. He did a lot of things like that, but his biggest tick was the uniforms. I was in Usagi's School and I needed to, as he'd say, act it out properly. We were roleplaying. I wasn't enrolled in an actual high school so I didn't just have one laying around, so he let me borrow his son's old clothes. His son was around my age and bulkier than me, so his clothes hung off me like a hanger. His son was Shiro Usami._

 _What- yeah, I'm married to Shiro now. But I'm not at that part yet, so I'm gonna talk as if I'm 14 and I never met him._

 _Am I getting into this? I didn't notice._

 _Usagi tutored his own kids as well as me. So, I would be driven over by Papa every day at around 4 and stay for a couple hours, then go back home, dick around, and break out of whoever's apartment I was staying at to dick around some more outside. I was a bitter, angry kid, and just my luck Japan's full of the same type as me- people askin' to pick fights. I loved those types of people. I loved to hit and be hit by them. I never slept. I used to have a lot of nightmares back then, too, so I figured that if I didn't sleep I couldn't have nightmares._

 _Actually, part of the reason why I was so angry was because, back then, Shiro Usami was a living nightmare._

 _I still remember one of my worst nightmares. Okay, so it would start out with me being in an English classroom, reading a book. It was simple, right? I opened the book- I saw that there was to see about that book. It was just a bunch of jumbles on a page. Everyone else understood what these jumbles were supposed to mean. They loved the jumbles. They must be seeing something I'm not. But it was the same text, and it was in black and white, and itw as the same book. But I'd still look up with this oh-shit expression. What does this mean, what does this mean… What were these kids seeing? Whyw ere they so happy? Why weren't the jumbles bothering them? That's all I wanted to know._

 _There was peace in the dream until I started screaming, and it was the big kind of screaming. Everybody turned to look at me but I couldn't stop. I screamed myself awake. Every time._

 _I'm 23 and I can't read._

 _Not English, anyway. That's why I stuck with the tutoring as much as I hated it. Mr. Usami was gonna teach me Japanese and Japanese came easier- even if, at first, it was just more jumbles and blobs. I picked up the characters easier, I guess. Actually, believe it or not, I started to like reading after a while of staring at all those worksheets and practice books. But there was still something that ticked me off, even though I kept coming back. And again, after a while, the same thing that pissed me off was the thing that kept me coming back._

 _I remember me thinkin, This would be better if it wasn't for that kid across from me. Shiro was perfect. Everybody thought so. We all saw the same Shir, the blonde hair and the blue eyes and the sharp way he dressed. We all saw that. He smiled at each and every one of us. But not all of us felt the same about him. I didn't understand him, and it infuriated me how they all loved him so much._

 _He was a perfect son. He couldn't just READ, no, he had to show off and speak in 3 other languages. I would go home every day, pissed as hell, kicking shit I found on the ground. Shiro was so special. I wasn't. It was another thing I wasn't. I couldn't be a real son, let alone a perfect son. I couldn't be a normal schoolboy, let alone a straight-a student. And here in front of me was this person I wanted so badly to be, mocking me with his existence, and nobody could even understand why I was so pissed at him._

 _Y'know, Japan's pretty clean even where we lived. There was only a couple old metal cans on the ground around the apartment complex. Daddy and Pops used to live somewhere brighter and less musky, and it was only a trainride to Marukawa from the old place, but with the three of us kids, we couldn't live there long. They couldn't support us. But it wasn't my fault, Ririko's fault, or Nagisa's fault that Daddy and Pops had to move from their nice apartment complex to this shitty neighborhood. It's still a lot cleaner than where I used to live in the United States._

 _After every tutoring session, which were almost every day, I would go for walks and just kick tea and coffee cans down the street until it got dark. I picked fights with the kids I crossed, whoever looked at me wrong._

 _I didn't know how to deal with being angry and also being a son. I didn't know the protocols. Back when I was an orphan in the orphanage in Brooklyn, it was just, "Whine to another kid until they tugged on your hair, and then you can punch them." That's how it went down. We never talked things out back there. And I was sure that if I went to Pops with my problems, he'd just coldly, mechanically bark at me, "Say it in Japanese." I didn't want to say it in Japanese. I wanted somebody to listen to me. That's why I kicked those fuckin cans down the empty street. Cause nobody could say I was doin' it wrong and I could pretend like I was back home again, kicking stuff, being violent. I kicked the shit out of those cans._

 _There was this one time nobody was home after one of my walks and I lost control. I smashed the shit out of my hand against the wall. I had run out of shitty cans, so I did the worst to my hand. When Papa came home, he flipped shit. I still remember what he said._

 _"What the fuck is wrong with you, Rei?!"_

 _I remember what he said because he said it in English._

 _Suddenly, I was the one listening to him make the phone call to the hospital. Pops isn't someone you want to talk to when he's mad. When he and I got in the car to go to the clinic, the tires squeaked so loudly it reminded me of home and the city traffic. It made my heart jump. I was so scared. Pops was mad and he was yelling at me._

 _"The fuck is wrong with you, Rei? What were you thinking?! What happened? Why did you do that?!"_

 _I yelled at him. "Well, Mr. Takano, it's not like you'd listen to me if I talked to you!"_

 _He yelled back really harshly, something in Japanese. He didn't understand what I was saying. But the thing is, that didn't matter. What we were saying to each other meant shit. The important thing is what I realized that day. Pops only gets mad at me because he's scared for me. That day made me realize that we aren't that different._

 _Now I remember. I guess, after that, I appreciated Pops more. Actually, I started calling him Papa after they patched my hand up, and I never called him Mr. Takano again._

 _I still had to go to tutoring. After all that scare. Usagi didn't say anything about it. I guess, I was just an old friend's brat to him. That was fine. He was just a tightass to me, so we were even. Papa Misaki though, he was weird about it. He kept asking me if my hand was okay and babying me, basically mothering me, which was the weirdest feeling ever. Papa Misaki taught me a lot of "maternal" shit that I still use with my own kids. I guess, Papa Misaki felt sorry for me, and a tiny part of me needed to be felt sorry for. He taught me how to cook. My kids love the hot dogs that are cut to look like an octopus. He taught me how to do that. He taught me how to do a lot of things, and in a lot of ways he's like a third dad to me._

 _But, that's a different story._


	4. The Adult

_That? That? That's none of… we don't need to… that's not important._

 _Look, if you wanna know so much about it, take it up with someone else. I don't think about that. To me, it didn't happen._

 _Jesus fuckin' Christ…_

 _Who told you what? No, that's the complete opposite of what happened. Are you serious? Fine, but just to set the record straight, this is what happened okay?_

 _For a while, me and Shir were at two different ends of the planet. So we fell apart, almost._

 _What happen was, the Usami family is… well, they're apparently, this huge-ass deal and everybody knows about 'em, except me. I don't understand it. They got their business everywhere. . …god, what was I thinkin with him. I'm a hermit. Just like Dad and Papa. I mean, we don't have like all these friends, okay. As a family. We don't have family friends to watch our backs. Papa keeps to himself 'cause, frankly, nobody wants to be his friend with that attitude. And Dad's like… way too… uh… Look, this ain't gonna sound nice, so you can't tell him I said nothin' okay. Dad's a good guy and all. I'd be his friend. But he's way too, uh, eh, invested in Papa. He dun' act like it. He says he's too good for 'um, but we all see that he's just lyin' to himself for some reason. I dunno._

 _Point is, I don't come from a family like the Usami's, so I can't understand 'em fully._

 _I don't think Shir likes his family either, really, and I can't blame him, but I hate it for a different reason than him not likin it. 'Cause now everybody's in my business, you know what I mean, 'cause not only am I marryin into the family but I'm the only dude marryin into it with another dude. Mr. Misaki and Mr. Usagi sorta… what's the phrase, y'know, they softened the family's opinion of that sorta stuff. I never really cared about it, personally, but they're all over it in a gossipy sorta toxic way. No, the worst one was when we were at this… ugh, garden party, and I wouldn't be caught dead at a garden party. Those are friggin' girly! But I had to go 'cause Shir and stuff and family approval or whatever, so I went. We were engaged but not married, and now thinkin back on it, it was probably set up for a trap for us. To fuckin interrogate us. Cause before I knew it, some cousin from Europe with these really big eyes and this really pale skin leaned over real close to me, like don't do that with me man, I have issues with that, and asked me the most irritating friggin question in my entire fuckin life._

 _"Who tops?"  
Seriously, she- yo, stop it! Stop laughing! It's not that funny! Jesus. _

_So, Jesus Christ, how did I get on that….That look on your face right now better not be askin' me_

 _to answer that. aOh my god. Look, to set that record straight before I set that other record straight that we should be talkin about, we don't do that stuff. Pops has the most to say about that topic. But it's over, okay? I ain't talkin about it no more._

 _Yeah, okay. I'm seriously not gonna talk about that._

 _… Look, I don't know what that word means, but all I know is the stuff Pops and Dad are crazy over is fuckin gross, okay, and I don't do gross shit. So, the other thing, with the… Yeah, yeah. I don't know how you found out that happened in the first place, but this is what really happened._

 _Shiro was like, friggin 19 at the time, so he had to go on some family business trip. Only it was just him and Mr. Usagi, and after that I didn't… I couldn't… there was no way to talk to him. He was in fuckin another country. And I was 19 too, and I didn't have a job or an education or nothin. So what I did was-_

 _Wha? I didn't have an education 'cause… Look, the plan was for me, after I was adopted, that I woulda taken a couple years to learn basic Japanese, and then I'd get integrated into the school system and graduate like every other motherfucker. But I didn't. Pops was so pissed. But he was more pissed at… not me, well yeah me, but him too._

 _So, there was basically only one place I wanted to go after that: The old Orphanage. The old Orphanage director was this hotshot lady who started it all up actually, but she was shit at her job. We'd all be running around causin chaos and destruction and mayhem and she'd be in her study friggin writing on that dumbass typewriter. So, I went back seein' oh maybe I can help her, maybe get paid too. Pops paid for my plane ticket and everythin and I told Mr. Misaki and Suzie and Aya- Ayana, that's uh Shir's younger brother. And Suzie is is older sister. So I told 'em I was leavin and Mr. Misaki said, yknow he said really sad like_

 _"Shiro thought you were gonna be here when he came back," or something like that._

 _I left anyway. I didn't want to! Well, I did. But Shir was gone after all, I didn't know if he comin' back. Of course he was, but…. Goddamn, I dunno. I just wanted to leave the entire friggin country and everything in it. Shir got to leave. Why not me too? Anyway. So yeah, I took over the Orphanage 'cause the old lady went batshit crazy, friggin institutionalized, and that was that. I'm still the Director and I don't make a lotta money, but I got 39 kids in that place right now and I think I'm doin alright._

 _But back then was different. It wasn't alright. But I had to be alright 'cause I was a, y'know, an adult, and I was also a Pops of my own, sorta, so I needed to man up. Grow some balls. It was a hard thig to do without Shir._

 _I mean- god, why ya lookin at me like that? I see your weddin band. You're married too, right? You should know what I'm talkin about. Bein away from… y'know, that person in your life? It's fuckin horrible. For three friggin years too! It was a lot of being terrified. Orphanage kids aren't terrified of nothing. I wasn't scared. We ain't scared of nothing. Those kids I raise in there? They won't grow up scared like me. I convinced myself I really wasn't hat scared, of bein alone and prissy fuckin junk like that, and that did processed in my head. I got angry at so many things. Friggin I was breakin shit. It's a good thing too! I'm glad it happened. I got respect out of those kids. Especially the wild ones, the ones you need respect out of._

 _At some point, I started thinking Shir left cause he'd found a girl. A pretty girl. You know, a hooker. I mean, I wasn't a sight to look at. I still ain't. I-_

 _Pssssh. That's gay man. I look like my Pops? Y'all tryna say my Pops is pretty?_

 _Oh, y'all blushin. Ain't you married?_

 _Shut up? But, Mr. Yokozawa, I thought I needed to continue with my very interesting life story?_

 _What's with that look on your face? Eh? Mister what?_

 _You didn't tell me your name was Mr. Kirishima. You said Yokozawa! Oh… oh. Oh I see. Well, shoot man, I was just kiddin._

 _Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know you love your husband. But how do you know about my Pops? I think it goes a little deeper than you used to work in the same building as him._

 _Okay, okay, I'm shutting up. I'm continuing. Well, when that idea came into my head that Shir'd found a girl, there was no going back from that, it ruined me.I still remember paying bills in my office and the idea poppin randomly in my head and it was 1 AM and it… it was just a lot of crazy shit happening for a Tuesday. It was a Tuesday._

 _I remember booking and canceling flights to Europe. But adults don't do that. I had to move on. It was just a fuckin stupid high school fling or whatever. I remember bein so damn depressed all the time… Look, this ain't therapy. I'm gonna shut up right now._

 _Yeah, of course he came back._

 _What was that like? Well… Uh…._

 _… Ah, fuck. Look at that time. Look, Max's got a dentist appointment and I told Riri I'd call her later. Apparently she's getting hitched with some chick- I- I need to go._

I don't like how Rei talks about hookers and girls. I don't endorse that kind of passively hurtful kind of talking. He isn't a good person, even though he's the protagonist. I just wanted to make this clear.


End file.
